The Ministry of the SpiritGordon, A. J. (Adoniram Judson)
Religion
The Ministry of the Spirit
Gordon, A. J. (Adoniram Judson)
Holy Spirit
out-gathering shall have been accomplished, and _the people for his
name_ shall be completed, they will be translated to be one with him in
glory, as they were one with him in name, the Head taking the body to
himself, "as Christ also, the church" (Eph. 5: 29). And this
translation of the church is to be effected by the Holy Spirit who
dwells in her. "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the
dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also
quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Rom. 8:
11). It is not by acting upon the body of Christ from without, but by
energizing it from within, that the Holy Ghost will effect its
glorification. In a word, the Comforter, who on the day of Pentecost,
came down to form a body out of flesh, will at the _Parousia_ return to
heaven in that body, having fashioned it like unto the body of Christ,
that it may be presented to him "not having spot, or wrinkle, or any
such thing, . . . holy {207} and without blemish" (Eph. 5: 27). Is it
meant to be implied in what is here said that the Comforter is to leave
the world at the time of the advent, to return no more? By no means.
And yet what is meant needs to be very explicitly set forth.
A very able writer on the doctrine of the Spirit makes this remark, so
striking and yet so true that we have put it in italics: "_As Christ
shall ultimately give up his kingdom to the Father_ (1 Cor. 15: 24-28),
_so the Holy Ghost shall give up his administration to the Son, when he
comes in glory and all his holy angels with him_."[1] The church and
the kingdom are not identical terms, if we mean by the kingdom the
visible reign and government of Jesus Christ on earth. In another
sense they are identical. As the King, so the kingdom. The King is
present now in the world, only invisibly and by the Holy Spirit; so the
kingdom is now present invisibly and spiritually in the hearts of
believers. The King is to come again visibly and gloriously; so shall
the kingdom appear visibly and gloriously. In other words, the kingdom
is already here in mystery; it is to be here in manifestation. Now the
spiritual kingdom is administered by the Holy Ghost, and it extends
from Pentecost to _Parousia_. At the _Parousia_--the appearing of the
Son of Man in glory--when he shall take unto himself his great power
and reign (Rev. 11: 17), when he who has {208} now gone into a far
country, to be invested with a kingdom, shall return and enter upon his
government (Luke 19: 15), then the invisible shall give way to the
visible; the kingdom in mystery shall emerge into the kingdom in
manifestation, and the Holy Spirit's administration shall yield to that
of Christ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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